Aleena
Warmth blanketed my skin, Jared’s admission like a balm that penetrated my soul. It filled up the places inside me that his absence had hollowed out, those places that had ached with abandonment and throbbed with the fear that I had to do all of this alone.
Like water to parched soil, that warmth filled me up until I felt it blossom into something else – pride.
I was proud of him. Because I knew how difficult it was for him to stand in front of my brother and say everything he had, to admit all of it aloud.
I burrowed myself deeper into his embrace because while his words soothed and nourished me, what I needed most of all was to feel.
“Thank you… for coming back to me. I needed you… I need this,” I mumbled almost incoherently. Once the words were released from where they’d been locked inside, I couldn’t stop them. “You don’t know how thankful I am.”
“Aly,” Jared said almost as if he was rebuking me, shocked by the confession pouring from my mouth. “Baby, it’s me who is thanking you. Without you, I don’t have anything. And you’ve given me everything.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong, Jared. I need you, too.”
His skin was hot and smooth, radiating the same desire he’d left burning in me since last night. Strength vibrated in his every move, his sinewy muscles corded and tight.
Jared was rough. Hard. The defined angles of his jaw were coated in coarse hair, and turbulence swam in the depths of his ice blue eyes.
But he was holding me as if I were delicate glass, as if he’d just been granted a gift, like I was the most fragile kind of treasure that he would guard with his life. There was something secure and strong and incredibly gentle in his hold.
Even as damaged as I knew he was, this gorgeous man was my perfection.
Almost on instinct, my fingers crawled up his narrow waist to the place where a haunting depiction of my eyes had been etched into his skin. The most intense green stared out from between two wilted petals on the dying rose sealed on the center of his chest.
That rose had always seemed a beacon to me. A key.
Almost every inch of Jared’s torso and arms were covered in ink, swirled colors and sweeping scenes of blacks and grays that represented all of his pain twisted across his skin.
But the rose that represented his mother on the center of his chest had always seemed the most profound because it wholly represented his love for her and how much he believed he’d lost when she died.
I’d been undone when I found he’d made me a permanent part of it. Like the moment that had defined him had defined me, too.
And now he’d allowed me to become part of his definition. Still, I hurt for him because I understood that he was a broken man. Last night we’d lain awake for hours in the quiet, me in his arms while he stared at the ceiling and let all the revelations of our reunion seep into his consciousness. He’d murmured into my hair that he’d never be good enough for me, even though he’d spend his life trying to be. He told me it was so much easier admitting he loved me than accepting that I loved him.
I knew he still felt unworthy of love.
Yet I loved him with everything that I was.
That love was enough to crush me.
I knew that from the pain I lived through in the months he was away and recognized it in the devastating relief I felt when I found him sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for me yesterday evening. It’d been blinding.
And God, I’d been so scared, telling him about the baby. But he had to know, even though I’d realized there was a very real chance the knowledge would drive him away once again.
This was no longer just about Jared and me. Now I had a baby to think about, too. And I understood the risk in taking Jared back. How vulnerable it made me.
I’d missed him so much, and I wasn’t sure I could deal with him leaving me again.
But it went far beyond that.
The little life growing inside me filled me with so much fear and anxiety, but even stronger was this surprising sense of anticipation. It filled me with love along with my worry, and wonder at the way that my life had been sent down a different course than I’d ever imagined.
So many nights had been spent praying and begging in the dark for him to return, drawing his face again and again in the pages of my sketch pads, those images that came to life in them the only thing I had left of him. Until last night, I’d never shown anyone my hidden drawings. They were so special to me, I didn’t think anyone could understand how important the faces I drew inside were to me, and I worried that others might minimalize the way I saw the people I loved as I brought them to life on a page. But last night, I’d shown Jared, because I needed him to know, to understand how significant he was to me and how he’d inhabited my drawings since I’d first picked up a charcoal pencil when I was just a little girl.
I’d desperately wanted him to be a part of my life.
I always had. But God, I couldn’t fathom how much I wanted him to be a part of our child’s life.
I believed in what we created. With all of me. In the beauty of it.
Last night, we’d talked very little about it. Instead, I’d found Jared’s affection in his touch, in the way he kissed across my belly and looked at me with fear and amazement shining in his eyes.
I searched for his left hand and lifted his knuckles to my mouth. I brushed my lips across the tattooed skin that marked the year Jared believed he had ceased to exist.
2006.
Jared had spent his life running from his past.
I thought of his right hand, where the knuckles were stamped with the year of his birth.
1990.
Jared had once believed those sixteen years were the only ones he’d truly lived.
But he returned now because somehow, through all of that, he’d seen a future with me, that he’d seen life beyond the date when he believed he should have died in his mother’s place.
I chose to believe in him because I knew no other truth.
I chose to believe in his love, as fragile as it was.
I chose to believe he would be strong enough to face all the demons darkening the goodness of his spirit, the ones he’d etched onto his skin in images of horror, the ones that manifested as tremors that shook him in the night.
Jared had always been a risk I had to take. Risks always involved danger. But the only danger I felt where he was concerned was the possibility of him no longer being a part of me. That was a fate I refused to consider.
He shifted, taking my face in his hands and lifting it to his. He pressed his lips to mine, softly, yet wholly intense. Almost desperate. His large hands covered most of my face. His fingers dug into the back of my head, something that I felt all the way to my heart.
“I love you, Aly.” His voice was low, rough with the promise, like maybe he needed to remind himself. Blue eyes blazed as he pulled back and stared down at me. I’d seen his love for me in those eyes for so long.
It was unmistakable.
How amazing did it feel that he was no longer trying to hide it?
“I love you… so much,” I whispered back.
“God.” Christopher cursed from behind us, the sound a mixture of disgust and surrender.
These last months, I’d scared my brother. I knew that. I’d witnessed it in his expression as he’d watched me lying balled up on the couch. I’d seen the worry in his eyes and known he had no clue what I needed or how to help me.
But he had. Just being there and supporting me had helped me. Up until last night when I told Jared, Christopher had been the only one to know about the pregnancy. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell my parents, who lived so nearby. I don’t know what I would have done without Christopher to support me.
My face was still buried in the safety of Jared’s chest, but I could feel him and Christopher still staring each other down. Testing. Tension thickened the air, so heavy I could actually hear Christopher swallow.
“You want to stay here? With her?” Christopher finally demanded. “And I’m not talking some temporary bullshit. You know this isn’t some kind of fucking game.”
Jared placed his warm hand on the back of my head, as if he were shielding me. “It was never a game, Christopher. I already told you that.” He ran his fingers through my hair, and I shifted to look back at my brother. “I think you already know that,” Jared continued. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
A grimace twisted Christopher’s mouth and he looked to the wall again. He huffed a loud breath. “Guess I’m going to have to get used to the idea of you two.”
Jared’s heart thundered where I had my ear pressed to his chest. “Yeah, you’re going to have to get used it.” Jared brought his mouth to the top of my head, and I knew his words were whispered to me. “Because I won’t let her go.”
“Go,” Jared grumbled at my mouth as he bent me back, those strong arms holding me up while he kissed me again.
“I don’t want to,” I contended with a forced pout, clinging to the back of his neck.
At all.
I just wanted to stay there.
In the safety of his arms.
Forever.
The arms that promised my future. The arms that told me he’d missed me as intensely as I’d missed him.
The exam I spent the last week struggling to study for, the one I had to take to pass my class? It suddenly didn’t feel all that important after all.
The thought of leaving him physically hurt.
He pulled back. A smirk lifted one side of his full lips. “You think I want to let you out of my sight?” Tender amusement flickered around his mouth before he leaned in close to my ear. “Not in this century, Aly. I want to spend my life wrapped up in you, wrapped up in that body that has me itching to drag you back to your room and show you just how much I don’t want to let you go. Just how much I’ve been missing you.”
His teasing turned serious. “But you have shit to take care of, and I’m not going to be the one who stands in the way of it.”
I nodded in acceptance, in understanding of this good heart that I was sure Jared still didn’t understand himself. “Okay. But for the record, you dragging me back to my room sounds like a really good plan.”
My heart had begged for him. Whispered and pled for him. But God, did my body ever ache for him.
He chuckled through a groan, and a grin danced all over his flirty mouth. Chills slipped down my spine with the expression that lit on his face, with the affection that played in his blue eyes as they played across my face. He caressed my cheek with his thumb.
“Baby, I’m going to be making love to you for the rest of my life. Don’t worry about it. Go to class now, and to work. You can be sure I’ll make it up to you later.” His voice dropped low in suggestion, his promise resonating deep in the pit of my stomach.
I quirked a brow at him. He wasn’t helping things.
“Go,” he commanded through a closemouthed kiss.
“Fine… I’m going.” I hefted my bag up further on my shoulder. Tipping my chin up, I met his eyes when I stepped around him to open the front door. I paused in the threshold, caught in the million emotions that seemed to be fighting for dominance in him. Those emotions flitting through him had to be a mirror to my own.
I think we both got it. Neither of us really knew anything beyond the fact that he was here.
Last night, our discoveries had all been too deep, revelations that changed lives. Shaped them. We hadn’t gotten into details or plans, and I had no idea how we were going to manage all of this. How our lives would merge. Become one.
But as I stood there staring at him, I knew they would.
“I’ll be thinking about you,” he promised.
“Me, too,” I whispered. I stepped out into the day and shut the door behind me.
Sunlight shined down, fall’s warmth a caress to my skin. Yesterday when I’d left for class, the sun had stood so much the same, though it had felt completely different. It’d cast the promise of its rise and then fall, just another lonely day that would give way to another lonely night. Never had I imagined when I climbed into my car yesterday that my life was hours from being rocked, that once again, Jared’s return would come as something I couldn’t fathom.
An upheaval.
But this was a disturbance I’d been praying for.
I lifted my face to the warmth of the sky. Thin ribbons of clouds rode on the breeze, sweeping out in slow waves.
Thank you, I said, so low it could not be heard.
Jared’s mother, Helene, slipped into my mind. And I thought maybe… maybe she, too, was filled with joy. Maybe I had been heard.
I knew this was the way Helene would have wanted things, for Jared and me to be together, that she’d seen something between us long before either Jared or I could understand what the bond we shared as children really meant. I crossed the lot to where my white Corolla was parked in its spot.
I gasped when arms wrapped around me from behind, then melted when Jared buried his face in my neck. He spun me around and pressed me up against the cool metal of my car door. His hands were on my face, in my hair, slipping down my sides before he brought them back up to force me to look at him. “Thank you.” Desperation poured from him, his hold increasing as he stared down at the shock I felt lining my face. “Thank you for believing in me, Aly. For getting me.”
A lick of fear flashed across his face. Or maybe it was remorse. He swallowed hard, and his voice hardened with strain. “I’m scared to think of where I’d be right now without you.”
The fear that flashed on his face coiled in my stomach. Because I didn’t know where he’d been. I had no idea where the last three months had taken him. How far or how low.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“You’re here with me now.” I had to believe that was all that mattered.
He grimaced. Gripping my face, he leaned down and kissed me, hard and demanding. There was no soft affection, none of the playfulness from upstairs. This was a seal. A branding. He jerked back. A storm raged in the blue of his eyes. “Don’t think I can’t see all those questions brewing in your mind, Aly. And I may not have all the answers right now, but we are going to figure this out. Do you hear me? I promise you that.”
And I saw it all there, the torment that plagued Jared, this beautiful man who had lost direction, the one desperate to find his way home.
“I’m not scared,” I promised.
A sad smile wavered at his mouth.
The only thing that scared me was I knew he was.
Anxiously, I glanced at the large, round clock hung high on the wall. My exam had gone as well as expected, if not better, and my lunch shift here at the cafe where I’d worked for the last two years had kept me busy. Still, the day had passed too slowly. Hours crawled by. Seconds… minutes… each willed away because I just wanted to see Jared’s face.
I needed to see him again.
Feel him.
Be reassured that it was all real.
It was like the moment that I left him staring behind me in the parking lot this morning, Jared’s fear had chased me. Caught up to me.
How the hell were we going to do this?
All I’d wanted was for him to come back.
I guess I’d never really thought beyond that, to what would happen when he did.
What I saw was clear. A family. Jared and me and our baby coming together like a picture of our pasts, the way Jared and I had been raised in houses full of love and support and encouragement.
But how distorted had the idea of family become for Jared? How much of it would be too painful for him to bear?
There had been no deceit when I told him I believed in him. I did, because I believed in the love that shined from him.
Maybe our family was something we would have to define for ourselves.
Finally, three o’clock rolled around, and I stuffed my apron into my bag after I finished up my side work. My stomach knotted in anticipation. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
“Someone’s anxious.” Clara, one of the other waitresses at the cafe, interrupted my restless thoughts. Even though we seemed an unlikely pair, mismatched, she’d become one of my closest friends. Older by almost ten years, she was loud, bold, a single mom who never hesitated to speak her mind.
A tease lifted her brow, and she smirked at me from where she tallied her checks for the day. “You’ve been skittish and fighting both a grin and a grimace since you walked through the door three hours ago. Care to tell me what’s going on?”
I laughed under my breath. “God, Clara, do you have some kind of sixth sense or what?” She always knew when something was up. She had an intuition about her, a keen eye and a soft heart. So maybe I’d only told Christopher and Jared about the baby. But Clara knew.
Six weeks ago she’d caught me off guard, completely unprepared for her unsolicited question. “So how late are you?” she’d asked, keeping her attention trained on pouring dressing over two dinner salads and away from the shocked expression her question shot to my face, like she had been giving me time to process her words. That had been before I’d worked up the courage to take the test, back when I’d tried to convince myself it was just the trauma of Jared being ripped from my life that had thrown my body off schedule. Though in my heart, I’d known. Just as clearly as Clara had when she finally lifted her face and pinned me with a meaningful stare.
I’d stopped by a drug store on the way home and taken the test that evening.
In the middle of the night, Christopher had found me crying.
Just crying.
Because I couldn’t see through sorrow to the other side, couldn’t feel anything but the pain and the need. It’d hurt so badly, knowing what Jared had left me with and knowing he wouldn’t be a part of it.
I had wanted it and hated it all at the same time.
Christopher had crawled into my bed and taken me in his arms, and the admission had bled free. He’d rocked me for the longest time, promising it would be okay. Then he’d slipped from my room and into his. Seconds later, I’d jerked to sitting, startled by the sound of the first crash, Christopher’s curses and chair and feet slammed against his wall, my brother taking all his anger out on his room.
I almost wanted to laugh now.
Jared and Christopher were so much alike, but neither of them could see it.
Violent.
Passionate.
Protective.
Each in their own way.
Now Clara grinned as she gathered her tickets into a pile and tapped the edges to straighten them. “Nah, babe, I’m just really good at reading people. You’ve been dragging your feet around here every day for the last three months and suddenly you have enough energy radiating from you that you have me contemplating the gym for the first time in five years.”
She lifted her chin, probing yet knowing.
I dropped my gaze to the dingy ground. “He came back last night,” I admitted quietly. Peeking up at her, I searched for her reaction. I’d come to value her opinion. I saw her as wise, as someone who’d learned the hard way.
She stilled before she tucked her stack of tickets into her front apron pocket and leaned back against the counter. “Came back to Phoenix or came back to you?”
Her question made a smile flutter around my mouth.
“To me… he came back to me. I just…” I shrugged in bewilderment. “It shouldn’t be possible to feel what I felt last night. The relief I felt.” It’d been staggering, both terrifying and perfect. “I was so worried about him. Not knowing where he went and if I would ever see him again. And he was just sitting there, waiting for me after I got out of class last night.”
“Did you tell him?” she asked.
I bit at my lip and nodded once. “Yeah.”
“And he stayed?” The question was weighted, like the answer to it would deliver the ultimate verdict.
“He freaked out at first and took off. But I knew he’d be back. He just needed some time to process it.”
I mean, I’d been shocked, too, the burden of it something I didn’t know how to carry. I’d known what it would do to Jared, the havoc it would wreak. But when he had finally returned, I knew our worlds had changed because they had aligned.
Jared finally understood what he had always meant to me.
He remembered.
He remembered me.
Joy and sympathy washed her expression into something tender. “I’m happy for you. You know that, don’t you?” Her tone shifted, hardened in emphasis, and I could tell she was about to offer me some wisdom I might not want to hear. “Enjoy it, Aly. Enjoy him. But don’t you dare forget these last months. Don’t ever forget you made it through when you didn’t think you could. Don’t forget you’re strong and you know what you want from your life.” Softly, her head dipped and inclined toward my stomach. “And don’t ever forget what’s relying on you.”
Unease flitted through my consciousness. My hand sought out my belly. “I know what’s important, Clara.”
“I know you do, Aly.” Her voice softened, the same as her eyes. “I imagine things are going to be different between you two now. But that difference is either going to be for the better or the worse. Just make sure he treats you well.”
That’s what she didn’t know about Jared. She saw the outside, the gorgeous, dangerous man. The one covered in a horror of tattoos, those same horrors reflected in the sea of pain that raged in his ice blue eyes. She saw a man plagued by his demons who knew nothing else but to run from them.
I knew that’s what others would see, too.
But I saw so much deeper than that. I knew the good that lay beneath the shell of a hardened man.
No. There was not a single worry inside me about whether Jared would treat me well.
My concern was only with how he treated himself.
Still, I promised her, “I will,” because my friend only cared and I knew a lot of her worry was with her own insecurities. Maybe our histories were hinting at similar circumstances. Her boyfriend left her with a tiny baby boy, never seeing her son’s father again. We both knew there was a possibility my story could turn out the same.
But I had faith Jared and I would have an outcome different from hers.
She grinned to break up all the tension. “So what are you waiting for? Get out of here. Go get your man.”
Crossing to her, I hugged her hard. “Thank you, Clara. I hope you know how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me the last few months.”
“Us girls have to stick together, right?” She grinned a little, repeating what she always told me, just this simple reassurance that no matter what, she was there for me.
I doubted many people knew how smart she really was, the woman who appeared to be nothing more than a sad cliche, the single mom working at the diner just struggling to get by.
I headed for the door, respecting her more than I ever had.
“I expect details,” she hollered at me from behind, “’cause that is one crazy-hot man.”
I laughed, because that was always Clara’s way, a pendulum that rocked from one extreme to the other, from teaching to an outright tease.
I tossed a glance back at her as I pushed the door open wide. “Not on your life,” I called.
Laughter broke through her wide smile.
“I’m all finished, Karina,” I called to my boss as I passed. “I’ll see you this weekend.”
She glanced up from the register and smiled softly. “Have a great Thanksgiving, Aly.”
“You, too.” The door swung shut behind me.
A cool breeze rushed over me when I stepped outside into the crisp fall air. Nerves buzzed in a quiet hum under the surface of my skin. The sun blazed a path westward, casting rays of late-afternoon sun across the canopy of blue, shedding its warmth and promise of a mild winter across the city sky. I lifted my face to it, breathed it in as I started down the sidewalk and around to the employee parking lot.
That breath left me when I saw him leaning up against the back of my car. His bike was angled sideways behind it. Short wisps of blond hair whipped in the breeze, the man absorbed in the hole he dug into the broken pavement with the tip of his boot. Completely lost in thought, he remained unaware that I approached.
I took the moment to appreciate him. My gaze made a slow pass across his jaw and full lips, down his neck to the strength bristling beneath his tight black tee. He lifted a cigarette to his mouth, and his wide chest expanded when he inhaled. My stare got stuck on his hands, the blocked-out numbers bold where they were stamped on his strong, long fingers.
Slowly he lifted his face. Those blue eyes locked on mine. I froze, stuck in them.
Something trembled within me.
Something powerful.
This was my man.
My future.
He dropped the cigarette to the ground and toed it out with his boot. Lifting his face, he pursed his lips and exhaled toward the sky. Smoke curled around his head, climbing toward the heavens before it bled into nothing.
Part of me wanted to deflect it – how beautiful he was, the intense feelings he stirred, the churn of need created with just a trace of his presence.
He looked back at me. One side of his mouth lifted, all sexy and indecent.
Could he know what that one look did to me? Not a chance, because this feeling was impossible.
Crossing his arms over his strong chest, he rested further back on my car, and his mouth spread into a full smirk.
I shook my head at myself. Maybe he actually did know.
“What are you doing over there when you’re supposed to be here with me?” His voice slipped along the ground, his intent reverberating against me.
With his words, I all out shook. A rush of red flamed against the cool breeze that caressed my cheeks. I dropped my head, trying to contain my grin as I shuffled toward him. It broke free when I stopped a half a foot in front of him and lifted up on my toes. I pressed my mouth to his.
Damn, it felt amazing to openly proclaim us.
“Hi,” I whispered. “What are you doing out here?”
“Couldn’t wait to see you any longer.” He brought his hand to my cheek and his flirty tone shifted. Everything about him sobered. “I’ve been missing you for too long, Aly Moore. I’m done with all that shit… missing you. No more, baby. I don’t want that for us anymore.”
He looked away, to the ground, before he brought his attention back to me. “If I’m being honest, maybe I couldn’t stay away because I needed to make sure all of this is real. It still feels like a dream to me.”
I wrapped my hand around his wrist, and he ran a thumb under my eye.
“It’s real, Jared. Us. All of it.”
“Yeah?” he asked. The fact he needed reassurance, that he felt compelled to come here to gain it, hurt my heart.
The sad thing was that I needed it, too.
“Yeah,” I promised.
He shook his head in disbelief. “Can’t believe I’m here, Aly. Can’t believe you want me after all the shit I’ve dragged you through.”
I leaned forward, tipped up my chin to capture his gaze, and brought us close. “You think I didn’t understand why you left? Do you really think that all those times we hid away in my room together that I didn’t understand you? That I didn’t understand why? That I didn’t know you?” I squeezed his wrist. His pulse thrummed wildly at my palm. “Because I did. I know you. I was there, too, Jared. I saw what you went through. And I’ll never pretend I understand everything you’ve gone through, but I promise I do understand you and I will always be here for you.”
Relief left him in a stuttered breath. “God, Aly, what did I ever do to deserve you?”
I pressed myself to him, to his gorgeous body and the power that radiated from his spirit. That warmth covered me whole. “It doesn’t work like that. We don’t earn love… it’s a gift we’re given.”
He pulled back. Brushing his fingers through my hair, he twisted a single lock in his finger. “And what if I want to return that gift?” he asked through a whisper at my ear. “Give it?”
I fisted my hand in his shirt. “You already have.”
His head shook. A hint of laughter floated out with his breath. “See, I was right to begin with… I’ll never deserve you.” He tugged at my hair. “You… perfect girl… will never see yourself the way I see you.”
I slowed. The hold I had on his shirt increased as my unease flared. Because I did want something from him. Or maybe I just wanted it for him… for us.
“Do you know what tomorrow is?” I hazarded, taking a chance as I pushed a little. Was I aware I was treading on dangerous ground? Yeah. But I knew we couldn’t go on as we had before, dodging what was important.
Jared stiffened. Nerves rocked through him and a rush of air left him on a heavy exhale. Shakily, he raked his hand over the top of his head. “Yeah, I know what day tomorrow is.”
Thanksgiving.
These last months had blurred, the holidays approaching with little anticipation. Or maybe I’d approached the thought of them with trepidation. I knew it was coming, and I knew the holiday would be the time I would have to tell my parents everything. Before Jared had returned, I’d planned to finally speak his name tomorrow and admit it all, telling them I was pregnant and I had no idea where Jared had gone.
And I would have done it without shame.
Even though Jared’s guilt had been enough to drive him away, I knew it didn’t have the power to diminish what we had shared.
Regardless of the circumstances, I loved him and I knew he loved me.
Still, I knew my announcement to my parents wouldn’t escape being greeted with anger and disappointment.
No doubt, my parents would be feeling all of it. Anger at the situation. Disappointment in me for what could only be construed as irresponsibility.
But I knew most of the anger would be directed at Jared.
My father kept me on a pedestal, and to him, I’d always been in the white. Without blame. Pure. Innocent in his mind, which only saw right and wrong.
And I had no doubt that he would hold Jared in the wrong.
Now that Jared was back, I was counting on time proving my father wrong.
And tomorrow Jared and I had the chance to begin making this right.
“I’m going to spend it with my family,” I said, intention seeping into my tone.
Grief flashed across Jared’s face.
A knot of pain twisted in my stomach. Pain for him. I always promised if he let me bear some of his burden, I would. I hoped I was bearing some of it now.
Taking a chance, I took a small step forward. “You’re that now, you know.” My voice dropped to a whisper with the declaration, and both my hands cinched tightly in his shirt as I drew him closer to me. “My family. Come with me tomorrow. Share it with me.”
His throat bobbed heavily when he swallowed. “They know?”
I barely shook my head, my nose so close to his they brushed. I clung to him a little tighter. “I planned on telling them I’m pregnant tomorrow.” Emotion pushed at my chest. “I want you to be there, Jared, for you to stand beside me when I do.”
“What about me? Do they even know about me? About us?”
The words lodged at the base of my throat. I forced them around the lump. “Just my mom. I finally told her about us just this last Saturday.”
Jared jerked his head away, and he gripped the back of his neck as he turned his attention to the sky. “Goddamn it.” It came as a wheeze, as fear and another challenge that we had to conquer. He dropped his gaze back to me. “This is all wrong, Aly. I did this all wrong.”
“What are you talking about?”
Humorless laughter rolled from him, and he lifted his mouth in a sneer. One directed at himself. “It’s backward, Aly. Fucking backward. Because I should have stayed and told them how I feel about you. I should have told them I love you, rather than showing up with your dad knowing nothing about us and announcing to them I got you pregnant. I’m sure that’s going to go over really fucking well.”
Bitterness bled, and he flung his arms out to the side. Disgust poured from him. “I mean, fuck… look at me.”
I cupped his face, taking in the sorrow that haunted the warmth I saw so vividly in his eyes.
“Hey… don’t do this, okay? What matters is what I see when I look at you and what you see when you look at me. Don’t you understand that? I know it’s going to be rough telling my parents… for both of us.”
For Jared, just going back to the old neighborhood would be a trial. Three months ago when Jared had left me and run to Vegas, all it’d taken was seeing my mother. She’d shown up at my apartment, unannounced, and just her being there had thrown him over the edge, broken down the walls he hid behind, and brought the words he kept buried inside himself flooding from his mouth.
And all of it had sent him running out my door.
It was like everything had been building and my mother was the boiling point.
I wasn’t fool enough to believe any of this would be easy for him.
But I knew it was something we had to do if we were going to make it, if Jared and I were to have a chance to make a life out of the wreckage of his past.
“I need you to be there with me, Jared. Even if you don’t say a word, your presence will say everything.”
Dropping his forehead to mine, his lids slipped closed, and his hands dug into my hips. He tugged me closer. “I never wanted to ruin you.” I could barely make out the words, he uttered them so low. Still, I felt them all the way to my soul.
“You really believe that?” Hurt bled into my incredulous words. “That you ruined me? Do you know the joy you’ve brought me? I never thought I’d find love, Jared… because my heart always belonged to you. And even though it broke me when you were away, never once did I regret us.”
A breath of surrender flowed from him. He pulled me fully into his arms, buried his face in my neck. He inhaled and held me closer. “I just want to make you happy, baby. Do right by you.” His hand went to my stomach. His palm trembled there. “Do right by this.”
“You already have,” I promised.
He chuckled a little. The storm from moments before passed, and the traces of joy I’d witnessed so often in Jared’s expression made a reappearance on his face. “At least I got my job back.”
“Really?”
“Went to see my old boss before I came over here today. I figured he was going to tell me to take a hike, but I walked through his door and he said he’d never been so happy to see anyone in his life. He was in a bind, needed me. He hooked me up with something similar to what I was doing back in Jersey. I’ll be the supervisor at a few of the construction sites, plus he wants me to do some custom carving, trims and designs. I start back on Monday.”
Weaving my fingers through his, I tucked our connection between our chests. “See… we’re going to make this work.”
He nodded and kissed my nose. “Yeah. We are.” He smiled. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
“’Kay.” I stepped back, swinging our clasped hands between us. Was it ridiculous I didn’t want to let him go?
A grin quirked up on one side of that full mouth. He seemed as reluctant as I was to let go. Then he released me, swung his leg over to straddle his bike, and kicked it to start.
The engine warbled deep.
Jared stretched his legs out, his booted feet holding up the bulk of metal between his thighs. He teased at the throttle and let his gaze drift over me.
I stood there, breathless. Emotion tumbled through me, pitched through my consciousness and spilled into my stomach as desire and devotion.
I loved this man, the beauty and the heart, and every single flaw.
Forcing myself to turn away, I climbed into my car and started the ignition while Jared rolled out. Backing out, I followed him to the road. He revved the throttle and wound out onto the street. His shirt flapped against his back, his hair striking blond in the rays of sun gleaming down at him, the ridges and lines of his arms flexing as he powered the bike.
God, he was beautiful.
Following close behind him, I felt confident but shaky. All of Jared’s reservations were valid, and I felt them, too. But it was time to face them. As I auto-dialed, a tremble of nerves rushed through me.
“Hello?” Mom answered almost cautiously. A din of noise rose up in the background around her. She’d called me numerous times over the last few days since I revealed Jared and me to her on Saturday. Worried, she’d been checking up on me, promising me one day it would be okay.
I guess moms know best.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, sweetheart. How are you?”
“I’m good,” I answered honestly. For the first time in months, it really was true. “Where are you?” Distorted voices echoed through the line.
“Ugh… standing in a line at the grocery store that is about a million miles long. Remind me next year not to do my Thanksgiving shopping the afternoon before. Everyone and their mother is here. I think there was a fistfight on aisle two over the last jar of cranberry sauce.” The words were light and funny and good-natured, just like my mom.
I smiled, and I could see her rushing around, trying to cram five days’ work into one as she prepared for dinner tomorrow.
“Is everything okay?” she asked. “You seem… different.”
“Yeah… I just needed to talk to you… or tell you…” I trailed off.
Silence met me from the other end, waiting.
Jared rode ahead of me, a beacon I followed because he’d always been my destination. My best friend and the master of my thoughts, the one I yearned for even when I hadn’t been old enough to understand what that yearning meant.
“I’m bringing him to Thanksgiving dinner at the house tomorrow.”
I didn’t even need to mention his name because everything Jared meant to me was wound into that one simple statement. A proclamation.
The silence thickened, and her breaths slowed as realization set in, then hastened in relief. She spoke quietly, “I knew he’d come back to you.”
Tears welled in my eyes. Because I was thankful. Thankful for my mom, for her heart, for the support I already knew she was going to give. Thankful for Jared. I stuffed the emotion down and continued, “I want to be the one to tell Dad about us, but I think it’d be a good idea that you tell him Jared is coming so he’s prepared.”
Tomorrow would shock my dad. At least he could be prepared to see Jared’s face.
I could almost see her frown. “Yeah, sweetie, I think you’re probably right.”